HENRY ELBOW AND THE TREASURE OF THE CLOKEYSPHERE, PART FOUR

“Okay,” Henry said, consulting the map. “The first thing we do is head north ten paces, until we get to this lake.”

“Lake? What lake? There’s no lake on this moon. Let me see that,” Slim said.

“Hey, yeah, that reminds me, why am I able to breathe and stuff if I’m on the moon, shouldn’t my head be blowing up or shouldn’t I be floating around or something?”

“Oh, no, this isn’t the moon, it’s a moon. See, you’re not in the Milky Way anymore. This is the Clokeysphere Way, and since the Clokeysphere is made up of oxygen, gravity and clay, you can breathe and walk around. Also, that isn’t a lake, it’s a crater.”

“Oh! Except, if it’s a crater, how are there sharks?” Henry asked.

Slim smiled, which was not so much reassuring as it was scary. “They’re not like Earth Sharks, they’re Space Sharks. I’ll show you.” He led Henry ten paces north, until they reached the crater that Henry had mistaken for a lake. Slim was right, there were sharks in the crater, but instead of swimming, they were floating. There were about five of them, and they all had two fins instead of one, were bright red instead of blue, and had glowing green eyes. Also, one leaned up and snapped at Henry, and when it did, it revealed that it had a second, smaller jaw where its tongue should be, with teeth that looked sharper than any Henry had ever seen.

“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s Nathan,” Slim said, putting a bony arm around Henry’s shoulder. “The name of that Space Shark. In fact, for some reason, they’re all named Nathan. Don’t know why, can’t say the name fits, either.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking, how do we get past them?” Henry asked.

“We’ll just have to be fast,” Slim said matter-of-factly. Henry looked at him, dumbfounded. How are we supposed to move fast enough to avoid them, he thought. They were moving in a circle, very quickly, and periodically their eyes would dart up and sneer at Slim and Henry. But before he could voice his concerns to the skeleton, another voice from the distance shouted, “Nathan! Nathan!” All the sharks looked off to find the source of the voice, and while they were distracted, Slim grabbed Henry’s hand and they both leapt smack into the center of the school of Space Sharks. Instantly, the sharks turned around, snapping both sets of jaws at them, but they were too late. Slim and Henry slipped past them to the bottom of the crater where, Henry learned, the sharks could not reach them.